It’s amazing the amount of information you can pass along in a tweet (which is limited to 140 characters, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Twitter). So in this day and age, where attention spans are short and the craving for information is large, I opted for a brief interview with American Idol’s Randy Jackson over a longer one. I then tapped into his fan base for most of my questions, which brought about some unexpected responses about just what the American Idol judges are looking for in contestants to pass them through to the next round, what he thinks of the boy bands new and old, and the fact that he’s working on forming a new boy band of his own, among other things. You can hear the interview in its entirety below.
One of the questions I asked Randy Jackson was about his experiences with type 2 diabetes. It all began for him with a trip to the emergency room in 2003 with flu-like symptoms that wouldn’t subside – sweating, fatigue, thirst, and lightheadedness. He thought he had the flu. He didn’t. He had type 2 diabetes. His blood sugar was 5 times what it should have been.
Randy Jackson wasn’t expecting that diagnosis, and it was a shock to him. Type 2 diabetes can cause heart disease, among other long-term complications. He was faced with managing his blood sugar, changing his diet, and exercising to manage his blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. Changing his diet was hard. He was used to eating Southern foods, and he’s always on the go. So he cut down on his portions, fills up on fresh fruits and vegetables, and keeps track of his “carbs.”
Randy Jackson is working with Merck to promote a website that provides the newly diagnosed with the information he would have liked to have had when he received his diagnosis.

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The Other Side of the Window by S.Z. Berg

What would you do if you knew the truth, but no one would believe you?

"[Y]ou will be hooked until the last page." William D. Curnutt "Pastor Dan" (Wichita, KS, United States)

"Savannah [will become] that scared, struggling, terrified part of you ... it won't much feel like reading, but like living it yourself, and intensely." L.E.Olteano - Butterfly-o-meter Books

"[H]er story will stay with you and make you look at those around you with a little more compassion and understanding, and maybe even a little more paranoia!" Amanda Alberson

"[T]he story will haunt you long after! " J. Sprague

William Edwards and the Wizardly Glasses

William Edwards was not good at anything, or so he was told. When he doesn’t bring home a soccer trophy (when they’re given out just for showing up), his banker parents (who bought him off the Internet) think he’s an investment that’s just not paying off. Oh, they are a frightful pair, indeed, even throwing mustard parties, with plenty of gluten, when William is allergic to mustard — and has celiac, so he can’t eat wheat!

But everything changes for William when a knowing old lady gives him a pair of big green glasses with rose-colored lenses. His classmates tease him, because he looks like a frog. But they turn out to be wizardly glasses, and William is transported to Winkleberry, a school for children with wizzies (magical powers). There he meets a smart young girl, Bora, and another boy, Zandall, who help William learn about his wizzies and accidentally lead him to a time travel machine. But before William can travel back in time to save his real parents, who are being held captive in 1929 by a zygot (a monster that inhabits the homes of mean people), William must protect the gene pool in his fake parents’ back yard from mutation!